Five Steps to Transform Your Church in Seven Months, Guaranteed

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Did that title grab your attention? Good. Because I mean it.

Rather than add some pointless setup here, I’ll go right into it:

1. Stop the sermons.

Most people can’t remember one point of the three-point sermon they heard last week. Many pastors couldn’t deliver a transformational sermon if the lives of their flock depended on it (and sadly, that is probably the case). I’ll go so far as to say that the average sermon given on an average Sunday doesn’t change the average American pew-sitter one iota. While that’s a crying shame— and shouldn’t be the case—I suspect it is.

So maybe it’s time to pack away the sermons for seven months. Discipleship is a long-haul reality, and no one will have his or her spiritual life derailed for want of seven months of so-so sermonizing.

Besides, we’re going to substitute something guaranteed to change lives.

2. Find a good orator—or three.

We put our best musicians in front of the church, right? Let’s find two or three people in our church who truly grasp the English language and can breathe life into words. This is both a gift and a talent. We should encourage those who speak the language with gusto and life. (Leaders, you are making it a priority to identify, encourage, and utilize the giftings of people in your church, aren’t you? And the best speaker in the church may not be you—or any of the other leaders.)

3. Open the Bible.

Remember the Bible? In some churches it seems as if hardly anyone does, despite its being the word of God. We’re going to open it and see what it says.

4. For that Sunday, have an orator read one book of the New Testament in its entirety before the assembled church.

Okay, so a few of those longer books may need to be split into two readings, but considering the length of the average sermon in an Evangelical church, it’s doable for most of the books.

5. Repeat for all 27 books of the New Testament.

Now enjoy the positive transformation. Your church WILL be changed.

I’m not kidding.

We’ve got our heads in the sand if we think that most Christians have experienced the Scriptures this way. Fact is, the way we Americans teach and read the Bible is a piecemeal shambles. We approach it in such microscopic bits that most Christians have no idea how it fits together. We have no vision for the wholeness of the Scriptures. Bible with crossIt’s why the Bible-reading plan I advocate reinforces repetitive reading of entire books. Simply put, most Christians have never read the New Testament books as they were meant to be read.

We’re also fooling ourselves if we think that most Christians have read the entirety of the New Testament. Nearly half of all college graduates, once they step out of those ivy-covered halls, will never again read a book all the way through. This is especially true of men. For those who didn’t graduate from college, it’s certainly worse. And no, I don’t believe the Bible gets a pass on that lack. Given how little Scripture is read in the average church on Sunday, most Christians may otherwise never hear the entirety of the books that forge the backbone of all we are supposed to know and grasp.

We get all huffy about interpretation and so on, but do we trust the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures to deliver on their promise to transform lives? Faith comes by hearing the word of God, right?

How then can this plan not be an EPIC WIN for your church—or for every church in North America?

I say we start this Sunday.

Because the system we have in place for transmitting the Scriptures to people in the pews simply is not working.

And because the Word of God doesn’t need our additions to work miracles in the lives of those who hear it.

All we have to do is believe that is true.

Do you?

Stuff I Don’t Get: Is Left Right?

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We all know this passage from the OT:

It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.
—Deuteronomy 31:8

The NT frames it this way:

And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
—Matthew 28:20b

But not as many people know this passage, one that makes for a series of puzzling questions:

And Hezekiah himself stopped the upper water courses of Gihon, and brought it straight down to the west side of the city of David. And Hezekiah was blessed in all his works. But, in regard to the ambassadors of the rulers of Babylon who sent to him to ask about the wonder that was done in the land, God left him in order to try him, to know all that was in his heart. And the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and his goodness, behold, they are written in the vision of Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, and in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel.
—2 Chronicles 32:30-32

So, when this righteous king, one of the few bright lights to sit upon the throne, Hezekiah and the Babylonian Envoysneeded God’s wisdom to know how to deal with Babylonian envoys, God leaves Hezekiah in order to test him?

The Hebrew word for left is pretty strong: ‘ âzab. One of its connotations is to forsake.

Hezekiah was a pillar of virtue. Sin was not the reason God left him at that point.

The passage said that God did this to see what was in Hezekiah’s heart. Didn’t He already know?

If Hezekiah had responded in some odd way, would this have surprised God?

Why test a king who had consistently proven himself good?

This is Babylon Hezekiah’s dealing with, not some podunk nation. Wouldn’t God’s presence and help be essential?

If nothing good can come out of a man apart from God, what’s going on here?

And sure, the Holy Spirit always indwells believers, but did God do this personal test with one of His own just this one time in 2 Chronicles? Or does He do something akin to this “leave in order to test” with believers today?

Nearly all the commentaries I have note that 2 Kings 20:13-21 expands what happens, as Hezekiah shows the envoys everything in his kingdom. Some commentators say that this proves that Hezekiah loved earthly riches and did not value God as much as he should. Or that he did not point the envoys to God by explaining the miraculous retrogression of the sun (Isaiah 38:4-8) or his own deathbed recovery (earlier in Isaiah 38). Yet this is what the Bible says elsewhere about Hezekiah:

In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah. And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that David his father had done. He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan). He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. For he held fast to the LORD. He did not depart from following him, but kept the commandments that the LORD commanded Moses. And the LORD was with him; wherever he went out, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him. He struck down the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory, from watchtower to fortified city.
—2 Kings 18:1-8

So this is a man who doesn’t really love God as he ought? And God left him?

For me, 2 Chronicles 32:31 is one of the oddest verses in the entire Bible. I just can’t make any sense of it. If you can, please clue me in!

Digital Versus Print Bibles?

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Two questions for readers:

  1. If you’ve been relying on digital versions of the Bible for a long time, do you find yourself resorting to keyword searches for finding verses rather than committing to recalling book, chapter, and verse?
  2. Has using digital versions of the Bible made using printed versions more difficult?

I’m interested in your feedback.